The New Search

As you've probably noticed, Experts Exchange released a new search system a few weeks back. We've highlighted the major highlights of it, but EE's Chief PooBah of development, Mark Barbir, was kind enough to send us a more complete list of what's new and improved:

1. Advanced Search has changed.
• It starts off a little simpler, just allowing you to add a keywords clause and change the display options. Then, as you select the boxes for different content types, more clause type options are added.
• There are also blue ? buttons next to each clause type that contain a little information on how to use that clause type to search.
• The names of some of the sections have been changed for clarification purposes.
• Custom Query is gone; everything we can search for is already contained in the advanced search interface so it wouldn't be useful anyway.
• There's a "Save this search" checkbox so you can save your search before you see the results.
• There are some small visual changes as well.
2. On search results, there are some other improvements:
• You can sort by the same options (more than we used to have, incidentally) as on the Advanced Search page. There's a dropdown at the top of the results that you can change. It'll change right away - there's not another "Submit" button or anything.
• On list view, you can also sort by clicking the column headers. The sort dropdown will show you how the list is sorted.
• On list view, you can hover over the topic icon and see the name of the actual topic that the question is in.
3. The Narrow Search Results sidebar is a bit different.
• Since the "open questions", "closed questions", and "all questions" tabs are gone from the top of the search results, they've been placed in this sidebar as "Question Status". NOTE: If you select "open only" or "solved only", then the search will automatically only search for questions -- all other content types will not be in the search results, even if you've checked the box for them under the "Content Types" section.
• If you're logged in, it's now above the workspace, so people can see it's there. You can click the "-" button in the upper right corner to minimize the whole section.

Most importantly of all, searches themselves should return more relevant and accurate results. This is because EE has switched to using the SOLR engine. The old search indexed titles only; SOLR indexes the title, description, and other meta content. We hope to eventually incorporate other "quality signals" such as "Used In Solution", views, click throughs, time on page, and so on.

Nata's Corner

When you think about how much money and energy Google is putting into Android (including buying a cell phone manufacturer to put Android on), it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Android is rapidly becoming the new favorite target of malware, trojans and everything else Windows users have been fighting off for years. The latest is another hole in Android's security. However, a vulnerability in Google Glass was fixed almost as fast as it was found.

If you make the mistake of letting some relative know that you work on computers, sooner or later you're going to get asked why your nephew or brother-in-law can't get rid of that annoying pop-up box -- especially if it tells him that the computer is infected and please send $300 to get it fixed; the latest one -- targeting Mac users -- says it's from the FBI. Avoiding the mess isn't that hard: first, temporarily disable JavaScript in your browser -- that lets you close the pop-up, because a lot of them are set to stay open until you click the button they want you to click. Clear your history, your cache, and anything else that might cause you to visit the page again. Close the browser window and then re-enable JavaScript. You can also force-quit the browser, but it's possible, depending on your settings, that when you re-open the browser, you'll wind up on the same page, or worse, you'll have your home page reset to it.

This is all the work of the MoneyPak malware, which I've written about before. Obviously, the key to not getting the malware in the first place is to just first, not visit sites that might have malware, and second, don't click on the button that says "pay the $300 to get rid of it". But if you do get the malware installed, you can a general guideline to cleaning it here. There are lots of variants though, so asking a question in the Antivirus topic area and reading Russell_Venable's articles on EE will help.

It's bad enough that the Feds want your emails and phone records and search history, but now they're going one step too far: they're asking for passwords too. Given that a couple of months ago, Microsoft issued a paper that said that ransomewhere -- like the kind I talk about above -- is beginning to contain password-stealing code, it seems like it's a short step for government employees -- who aren't necessarily the most honest people -- to start peeking into what's behind a password.

Finally, it's time to check your banking and credit accounts again. I don't know what an appropriate punishment is for these guys -- but I'm pretty sure it includes something psychologically very painful. Just don't believe the numbers.

Bitsqueezer

You know you know your stuff when angelIII and matthewspatrick are sending notes about you to the editor... and that was just the start of Bitsqueezer's week, when he answered a question from developingprogrammer about using implements in VBA. developingprogrammer had already gotten quite a bit of assistance from some of the Access topic area's heavy hitters: wayne_phillips, DatabaseMX and LukeChung-FMS, but was stymied by a bug that has existed -- or is it really a bug, or is it just the way Access works?

In any case, the depth and breadth of Bitsqueezer's replies impressed the heck out of everyone:

• angelIII: "Just amazing stuff from the expert."
• matthewspatrick: "That truly is some outstanding work. I had no idea Implements could even be used in VBA. Bitsqueezer's write-up is, simply put, awesome."
• developingprogrammer: "Guys, having y'all here IS standing in the shoulders of giants... superb superb once again. really amazed at both what you know and how much you go to help me and my quirky programming... you're my role model..."
• modus_operandi: "Your answer in http://www.experts-exchange.com/Q_28190703.html is, simply put, one of the most outstanding I've seen all year."

That got a couple of people looking around, and they found Bitsqueezer's artice on How to synchronize forms using own events, which, at presstime, wasn't an Editors' Choice article, but is still worth reading:

If you're a budding Access developer, and even if you're not, it's almost worth setting up a saved search to watch for Bitsqueezer's posts; they're gold.

Kudos

Sometimes, it's the little things that get overlooked. ussynth was trying to change the decimal settings in SQL Server, but couldn't get them to change. angelIII first told him it might be the interface, but then suggested the real problem: he was looking at the wrong server. "Well, after scoffing at your suggestion that I made such a basic and fundamental mistake, I decided to check and see. You are absolutely correct! The change took place on the production server, but I was verifying the test server."

lrbrister was modifying some code in a VB.Net dictionary, and got two responses -- one each from CodeCruiser (who wrote the original code) and angelIII: "Exceptionally cool guys. I have come a LONG way...just because of primarily you two folks."

dotsonpaper has a boatload of subscribers to his WordPress site, and didn't want to have to go through all of them one by one to change their user levels. tagit and jason1178 came to his assistance: "Experts-Exchange and Jason1178 and tagit saved me hours of work. Imagine manually editing over 1,300 user records in WordPress.
   1. Enter user name and click search, wait...
   2. When user name appears, click to edit, wait...
   3. When edit screen appears, select new user level,
   4. Click to save update
...and repeat. On a normal internet connection with a normal WP install, that four step cycle would be easily two minutes per. Factor that out over 1,300 users and you get 43.33 hours of work -- if you do not count the errors and mistakes which always happen with manual repetitive repetitive repetitive tasks. Thank you again jason1178 and tagit."

InformationAndSecurityBuzz.com listed its top 25 female Infosec leaders to follow on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. Among them, EE's Expert and frequent guest blogger Bev Robb, AKA teksquisite: "Sometimes tech journalists need to be picked on, and what better weapon to use against them than a stealth I.T consultant. So if you suddenly find journalists vanishing from your feed with no trace -- Blame Bev."

An Oracle profile on Linux was giving matrix0511 some issues; slightwv came to the rescue: "Ok. Great. Thanks for all your help. You were awesome!! Outstanding support!" The question also got the attention of one of the Cleanup Volunteers, dvz: "Just to commend slightwv to the Mods for going way beyond expectations to help the novice author. Very nicely done."

Finally, one of EE's leading Experts on networking issues, hanccocka, wanted to know if he could do a little testing of EE's dRACKula system. Daniella Gammon, EE's customer service manager, got him set up: "Brilliant, Dani has set me up! Time to dump my spreadsheets! Thanks Again!"

In Brief

Not talking: While almost every major tech company has gone on record calling for the US government and specifically, the NSA, to become more transparent about what it collects and who it collects it from (All Things Digital published the letter), the major telecommunications companies are not answering the phone. One Utah ISP decided to shed some light, however, and ZDNet filled in the blanks. Scary stuff. Of course, you can always simply spam the heck out of them.

+ cum spr2 2o: The Vatican is going to offer plenary indulgences to Pope Francis's Twitter followers.

Billions of webmasters suddenly sighed in relief: The patent troll who laid claims on virtually every website is toast.

Don't bother trying 9-1-1: There's a flaw in the encryption of SIM cards that makes about 750 million phones vulnerable to being remotely controlled.

EU: it's not enough: The European Union has told Google that its latest set of proposals, intended to settle antitrust allegations in Europe, don't go far enough in addressing concerns that Google favors its own services over those of other companies. So far, Google has managed to avoid the same issues in the US.

The ANY key, British style: British Prime Minister David Cameron wants to create an Internet blacklist. (We suspect the US Commerce department won't find this funny, though.)

The insurance rates will be killer: A 14-month-old girl bought a car on eBay. If eBay can tap that toddler market, it will be able to afford to give away $92,233,720,368,547,800.00.

It's NOT in the game: The contract between Electronic Arts and the NCAA won't be renewed when it expires in 2014 -- a casualty of the four-year-old lawsuit filed by former college athletes against the governing body for intercollegiate athletics in the US.

Heck of a business plan: Make your users hate themselves... but not too much. Or you can do what T-Mobile does: take catty -- but funny -- potshots at AT&T.

Coming this fall: Kaputsville: Zynga is rapidly approaching penny-stock levels after deciding it can't wait for online gambling. Who knows what the new CEO will do.

Trouble below the Surface: Microsoft's revenue and profit was up in its latest earnings report, but all is not well in Redmond. For one thing, a huge inventory of Surface RTs cost Microsoft $900 million; for another, the company is being very coy about how many Windows 8 licenses it has sold. Predictably, the stock dropped; the only consolation: Google's earnings missed the mark too, with similar results.

Think twice about that Sunday drive: It's not just the NSA that's collecting data; so are local law enforcement agencies. If you don't think they'll turn it over to the NSA, we have some beachfront property outside Albuquerque we'll sell you...

In requiem: Former UPI and Hearst White House correspondent Helen Thomas and boxer Emile Griffith. Possibly in serious jeopardy: the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Maybe.

"They killed Kenny!" We mentioned last issue that Microsoft is shutting down TechNet; now there's a Change.org petition asking Microsoft for an alternative.

Physics lesson for the week: We want one for the company foyer.

"It's where the money is." The latest targets for cyber-attackers: banks and universities.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Yahoo's revenues dropped, and even fell short of expectations... but the stock price rose. The police officer who pepper-sprayed students at the University of California, Davis, and became one of 2011's best Internet memes and YouTube sensations, has applied for worker's compensation claiming psychiatric injury. A college student in California is going to jail for a year for using a keylogger to rig an election. Virtual (not real) currency is hit by a real Ponzi scheme.

Milestones

New Geniuses: angelIII is back to being all alone at the top of the Most Genius Certificates list, as he picked up his 13th, in Visual Basic.NET. Receiving their first Genius certificates were sedgwick, in .NET Programming and dgofman, in Adobe Flash. Congratulations!

Milestones:

• Ray_Paseur has earned 16,000,000 points since joining Experts Exchange.
• hanccocka is the latest EE member to earn 13,000,000 points.
• rorya is only the sixth Expert to reach 14,000,000 points in a single topic area; he did it in Microsoft Excel.
• peter57r is the 22nd member of EE to reach 12,000,000 points overall.
• leakim971 has earned 7,000,000 points in JavaScript.
• thinkpads_user reached the 7,000,000 point plateau.
• mbizup has earned 6,000,000 points in Microsoft Access.
• Rancy has earned 4,000,000 points in Exchange.